Against the greatest odds........

Don't be so modest Juha. Don't forget to mention that the Finns won that battle in the Isthmus!

And I wouldn't have taken one case, I would just have mentioned FAF vs Soviets 1939-1944.

Kris

Hello Kris
yes, at the end of Winter War(in March 1940) IIRC the Soviet numerical superiority was even greater than in June 44 but I think the odds were very bad indeed also in June 44.
I would not say that we won that battle in the Isthmus even if Finns eventually succeeded to stop Soviet onslaught with able help of especially LW's Gefectsverband Kuhlmey and our losses were clearly smaller than those of Soviets. After all we lost over half of the Isthmus during the fight. Maybe one can say that we won the fight over the Isthmus ie in air, again with able help of Gefectsverband Kuhlmey.

Juha

Yes I'm also glad to hear that Kulmey is at least getting praised for what he did even if his home country ignored him.
Of course you were pushed back but in fact you guys did win the battle on the Isthmus. Because you have to look at the objective of the Russian army. They wanted to break through the Isthmus and into Finland. They failed so you guys won.

Kris

Bit off the topic but even if in 70s and 80s there were tendences among the "progressive elements" of our society to downplay the contributions made by Germans to Finland's defence in Finland in 1941-44, most of military historians gave due respects to Gefectsverband Kuhlmey for its contributions in summer 44. I even remember seeing a document of it in TV in late 70s IIRC. The team had even interviewed Kuhlmey and at the end of program the interviewer stood up, bowed to Kuhlmey and said something like "Vielen Dank, Herr General!" and IIRC gave to him a standard or something.
And a couple years ago they aired a new document on the subject which IMHO even overrated Gefectsverband Kuhlmey's influence, but it is usual that TV documents overrated the influence of their subject. And I think that those Stuka and Jabo pilots have really earned all the praise they got in the program. They did a great job in summer 44.

Juha

The 12 obsolete Swordfish attacking Bismarck and inflicting the damage, which doomed her are my favourite.

The two Fw-190A6 scrambling on D-Day and strafing the beachhead should be mentioned also. It´s hard to believe that they survived this sortie.